


Declaration

by Mercurie



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Historical RPF
Genre: Aliens, American Politics, Comment Fic, Community: sf_women_daily, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Robots, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercurie/pseuds/Mercurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1776, Martha Jones coins a phrase.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Declaration

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "we hold these truths to be self-evident"

"The play's the thing," the Doctor shouts, and just like that, he's written a little piece of history. Martha finds it funny at first, a bit cute really - the alien from outer space enthusing over human literature like a fan trying to get an author's autograph. She notices soon enough that it's not a one-off thing, it's quite a habit of his. Like with so many of his quirks, she can only wonder what he means by it. She always has several ideas, and she weighs them carefully as circumstances change.

"Oh yes, yes!" he says on one madcap adventure, screwdriver flashing as it freezes a robot's laser inches away from Walt Whitman's beard. "Magnificent! Isn't it _beautiful_? Wouldn't you say that it, oh, _sings the body electric_ , almost?" And of all the nonsense and babble, of course that's the bit that ends up in the poem.

Much later, on a rare sunny day in medieval England, he shouts "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, the droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote," and she manages not to roll her eyes when Chaucer cackles and scribbles the words down, his laughter fading as the TARDIS dematerializes. She watches the world fade through the little window in the door and thinks of those words echoing down through time, growing ever louder instead of fading away.

At first, she thinks it's just a game the Doctor likes to play. To tweak history a bit without actually changing anything - it seems like something a Time Lord would do. Why not let him have his fun, she decides. He knows what he's doing, what to say and not to say.

Then she starts to believe it's not just play, there's a little something desperate about it. An attempt to capture something of significance. His own history is gone. This way he can leave his signature on someone else's - poach a bit of this culture he's adopted in place of his native one. Sometimes she's sympathetic and sometimes resentful (it's not _his_ planet, now is it?), wanting him to feel at home on her Earth and yet wishing he could be a slightly less intrusive guest. We don't need you to dream up our words for us, she imagines telling him.

Once, after she's watched him waggle his eyebrows and tell Jane Austen about truths universally acknowledged, she thinks about the Doctor inspiring Austen after having read Austen and having been inspired by Austen and she pinches the bridge of her nose and tells herself he can't be causing temporal paradoxes just for the fun of it. Oh hell, who's she kidding. Of course he is.

Unless he wasn't inspired at all. Perhaps he _is_ the true author of the phrase. Perhaps it's a phrase from his own Gallifreyan history, translated into English and seeded into Earth's past to grow into a tiny flower from his home world. But that can only be her imagination running away with her. It's something she allows to happen more and more often with each trip.

In a malarial New World summer in 1776, Martha lets her imagination sprint. The Doctor's out looking for a particular mineral the TARDIS requires to fly properly again, and she's been assigned to babysit Thomas Jefferson in the meantime. The Doctor's left her the screwdriver, promising that it will generate a weak perception filter to keep them hidden from the bizarre pterodactyl-like aliens swooping through the dark sky over Philadelphia. Jefferson mustn't know, of course. It would distract him from finishing the Declaration of Independence on time.

"Unquestionable... clear, sacred... undeniable," Jefferson mutters. He doodles with his pen and Martha stifles a laugh. He looks like a university student pulling an all-nighter, complete with disheveled hair and red-rimmed eyes.

"Maybe it needs a little more John Locke?" she suggests.

"It's nearly all Locke already. If I'm not cautious, people will think it's _his_ latest publication and no one will take us seriously."

"Nah, I don't think so. I think it'll be - how should I put it? - _self-evident_ who the author is."

Jefferson lights up. "Self-evident! Perfect! My dear lady, how glad I am to have you here as my Muse."

She basks in the glow of her private joke as Jefferson writes down the word with visible satisfaction. There, she's made her own little mark. It comes with a burst of euphoria and she fights down an urge to giggle. No wonder the Doctor loves this so much. History is _fun_.

She's ready to leave it at that, but when Jefferson eventually nods off over his pen and papers, she takes the opportunity to see how much he's written. _We hold these truths to be self-evident_ , she reads in the flickering candlelight, _that citizens of a civilized nation possess an unalienable right to self-government._ Well, that's not right. It sounds – clumsy and limited, _off_ like a song in the wrong key. Besides, she knows what "citizen" means in this time - nothing as generous as it will in the future. The pen is in her hand before she's had time to think. She pauses over the paper. If she writes something now, will it disrupt the timeline? She doesn't have whatever senses tell the Doctor whether what he's doing is dangerous or not. But what if she chooses not to write, and Jefferson never hits on that essential phrase? Will he think of it eventually without her? Or is this how it's meant to come into being after all?

She decides that something this important shouldn't be left to chance. Maybe it's a little irrational, she acknowledges to herself as she writes. He probably would have thought of it anyway.

Still, she feels safer, triumphant even, after she's planted her own seed in history, a truth that is not yet self-evident or universally acknowledged: _that all men are created equal._ She imagines those words echoing through time, becoming stronger and changing in meaning as they grow closer to truth. It's a relief, somehow, to see them here in front of her, ready to become part of the future she knows.

Maybe that's why the Doctor does it, she considers, watching Thomas Jefferson breathe the slow, innocent breaths of sleep. Maybe he's simply afraid his beloved, well-meaning humans won't quite find their way forward on their own. She can't decide if he's right. But she doesn't regret giving history a bit of a nudge where needed. Just to be safe.


End file.
